Time & Place quiz: 16/Aug/2026- recap and results

QM: Annie Sengupta

In the end, the era is irrelevant. Socrates the philosopher and Socrates the footballer may have carried the same ideals, the same ambiguities.They could almost have been the same person, separated by 2,000 years. The ancient cultures believed in superstitions and had blind faith, just like we do. They tried to control land, power, chattel, fates just as we do. Some were wrong and some were wise enough to right their wrongs. They painted over facts and exaggerated their stories, just like we tried to clothe the Harappan dancing girl. They exploited their privileges and they stamped their names into stones and mud and left behind their dead emissaries to speak with us.

We learnt of the remarkable priestess Enheduanna, but who remembers the wandering ascetic who perhaps also recited hymns to her Sumerian gods? Who remembers the descendants of the horsemen and water carriers and cooks who marched alongside the Timurids? Does remembering it all make any difference, since we repeat the same stories across cultures, across timespans and geographies? And so, what is the point of posterity if we refuse to learn? We do not even need asteroids anymore to cause mass extinctions. We still allow the worship of beings that accept innocent child sacrifices. In the end the centuries of enlightenment and revolutions do not automatically produce a wiser civilisation, for we possess the same hubris as our ancestors did.

And yet there is hope , peeking through the murkiness of the past in strange places. One such hope is Piyush Pandey's song of unity in diversity, which Annie played in full as the answer to the last question. If only we could pay heed.

Teams and Scores

1^st : Team 3: 197 points

Prabhav Sidhaye, Mervyn Fernandes, Melchior Teles, Aastha Dua, Daksh Chauhan, Nitish Wagle

2^nd: Teams 1 and 2: 155 points

Team 1: Simran Dhond, Raunak Nevgi, Ruchira Porob. Paul Gatward, Tanmay Naik Pereira, Assis Sequeira

Team 2: Kanchan Gatward, Kaivalya Karkare, R Samyak, Devika Shetty, Viola Rodrigues, Isha

4^th: Team 5: 140 points

Ajit, Anjali Sengupta, Adish Talwadkar, Doc Chandrashekhar Rao, Nishant Kedar, Vilas Pavithran

5^th:Team 6: 138 points

Srijit Kumar, Sunil Sardessai, Saud Sayed, Neha Kamat, Anirudh Kakodkar

6^th: Team 4: 125 points

Utsav Banerjee, Soham Gaunekar, Ajay Poonia, Rochelle Martins, Pankaj Patil,

Namit Kumar